"How have you prospered over here? Have you been able to save a little? You spoke of wishing to return."
Rodolfo quivered. "It musta be."
"Why so?" There was genuine tenderness in the two words.
"There is nothing of hope for me. I am in a greata fix. I leave, I go; I cannot stay. I have a sin also. Only my beloved, she know how it was I transgress, so thatta perhaps my guilt is not for eternity."
Openshaw laid the tip of his stick upon the rowlock, with authority. "Do not start yet; let the boat drift. You must be hungry with this long exercise. Pray pass me those things near you, and the wine; and while you lunch, I hope you will be as frank with me, Rodolfo, as I have been with you.... I look upon it as a miracle of mercy that at the eleventh hour we have found each other." He knew that the young man's blazing black eyes were full upon him. "I can help you. Only keep nothing back." He filled one of the glasses from the fizzing bottle, and passed it. But it was struck aside, and the cry that followed was so sincere it gave the rudeness dignity.
"Ah! No, no, no. Sir, I touch the spiritual drink no more till I die. I vow to Anita mia, after the terrible night. For see! The evil ones, companions, take me on a burst in a city notta this, Hartaford, and thieve." His voice dropped under the excitement, like a file of infantry under fire. "They thieve a banka; and I watch, in gin so drunk as Bacco; and when the invisible man arise pugnacious, I throttle him, and curse, and rolla him down to the cellar. He moan and expire, so that we go down to thieva more; but the city she hears, there is a sound, then a sound on top of him, and we fly, fly, fly, this streeta, that streeta, till I come back awake to this Portsmouth, and fall on my knee to Anne, and cry tears. Ah, my sainta! she comfort me in charity, and talk to me, and keepa me from the bad; and for penance I go vera dry always, not to be damn. I tell it not to Niccola at home when I go; and I pray to go soon, that the Statesa Prison notta hanga me."
Such is the equilibrium between the infinite and folly, that at this juncture, as he recalled afterwards, Mr. Openshaw was eating his cheese. He answered, marvelling at his own composure.
"I read about it in the newspapers. You are in great danger, my poor boy. Now listen. There is a ship sailing for Genoa from New York next Saturday; and on her I wish you to engage your passage. That will give you a week to adjust your little affairs here; and you must, moreover, see your excellent sweetheart, and persuade her to marry you and go with you. Will you do that?"
Rodolfo opened his fine eyes very wide, and then closed them. "Oh, voluptuous as it would be, I cannot. The Capitan he make Anne deny me until I shall have many riches. She is a handmaid of domestic service on Pleasanta Street; but the old one, he is proud for her, and with the mosta reason in all the world. I shall coop with thesea my brothers cooping always in Ferrara, and do my parta with my soul. For bye-and-bye we make a marriage; and then she will be content to live in the sympathetic Italy, where safeness is for me."
"But we mean to mend all that, Rodolfo. Your father, whom I know very well, is growing old, and has a great deal of property with no one to share it. The least he can do for you (I am sure he feels that), is to put you out of the reach of want. He will not ruin you, nor throw you into temptations of a kind other than those you have undergone; for you are his son, and as such he must love you. But he will hope to hear by next spring, that you have bought a farm and vineyard, and that your kind kins-people at home, and your wife, sometimes pray for him; yes, and for me. Trust me; we need say no more about it. He will have it all settled by law as soon as he is able, but certainly within a month." He passed his hand over his hair, absently, and resumed. "You will go across the ocean now; and if my friend lives, he may come to you; but he may not live, and he may not come. It is his punishment not so much to lose you, or what you might, after all, be to him, as to recognize that his awful breach of duty has established between you what I may call, perhaps, in the long run, an incompatibility." Poor Openshaw, on the rack of his own candor, groaned aloud.